Standing Session

Ancient and Medieval / British and Anglophone

Erica Weaver (University of California - Los Angeles)
eric@****.com (Log-in to reveal)

The Old English Literature session is open to all papers that explore some aspect of Old English poetry and/or prose, but we are particularly interested in papers attuned to some facet of the conference theme, "Geographies of the Fantastic and the Quotidian." Speakers might consider: What can we make of the banal spaces in Old English and Anglo-Latin literature as well as the monstrous ones? When, or where, does the monstrous become ordinary and vice-versa? How might we map out early medieval English flights of fancy, musings, or experiences of the mundane? And is there a way to reapproach some of the most fantastic spaces in early medieval literature, like Grendel's mere or Guthlac's fens, from the simultaneously fantastic and quotidian logics of Los Angeles? Can we discover an early medieval theory of hyperreality? Or what happens when Beowulf comes to Hollywood?

The Old English Literature session is open to all papers that explore some aspect of Old English poetry and/or prose, but we are particularly interested in papers attuned to some facet of the conference theme, "Geographies of the Fantastic and the Quotidian." Speakers might consider: What can we make of the banal spaces in Old English and Anglo-Latin literature as well as the monstrous ones? When, or where, does the monstrous become ordinary and vice-versa? How might we map out early medieval English flights of fancy, musings, or experiences of the mundane? And is there a way to reapproach some of the most fantastic spaces in early medieval literature, like Grendel's mere or Guthlac's fens, from the simultaneously fantastic and quotidian logics of Los Angeles? Can we discover an early medieval theory of hyperreality? Or what happens when Beowulf comes to Hollywood?